Samory Rashid has provided, for the first time, a study of Islamist challenges, military, social and intellectual, across the African continent. He is weary of the preoccupation with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, which have dominated the attention on contemporary terrorism, alert to the neglect and condescension which scholars and policy makers have long shown to the African continent, and acutely aware of the large and fast-growing population of Africa and its Muslim societies. He explores the multiple challenges in Africa - a vast continent and potential theater of many threats and weaker states, complicated by the fall of the Qaddafi regime in Libya and the lethal weapons which became available. He goes far beyond the better-known examples of Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabab in Somalia to document a whole range of threats which have gained the attention of American and European military forces in the last two decades. His volume will be essential to policy makers, intelligence and military experts, students and faculty in North America and, indeed, the world.
-- David Robinson, Michigan State University